IxXXVi. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE. 



From this time onwards Wallace occupied his rightful 

 position as one of the leaders of scientific thought ; slowly, 

 but steadily, recognition and honours poured in upon him ; 

 and he held his place till death, on November 7th, 1913, in 

 his ninety-first year, removed him from amongst us. 



It is impossible in a brief memoir like the present to give 

 any real survey of Wallace's scientific or other work. An 

 author who dealt with such widely-sundered subjects as Island 

 Faunas and Spiritualism, the theory of evolution and State 

 ownership of land, is not to be summarised in a few para- 

 graphs. For a moment we may turn to his " Island Life," a 

 summary it may be said, but a summary welded by a master 

 hand. Here, after a brief essay on distribution, he points 

 out that the key must be sought in evolution ; and after dealing 

 with glacial epochs and changes of climate, he gives a detailed 

 survey of the fauna and flora so far as known, the result being 

 a book of great value, not only to the specialist, but also to 

 the general reader. In his '' Malay Archipelago," again, we 

 find most valuable observations, not only on the animals 

 and plants, but also on the native races and their history ; 

 and that he risked many dangers in the cause of science, the 

 mere account of his voyage from Waigiou to Ternate, in 1860, 

 is sufficient to show. 



The influences which lead men to become what they are, 

 though often apparently small in themselves, afford an inter- 

 esting study. In the case of Wallace, his taste, already slightly 

 developed, for zoology and botany, no doubt received a great 

 stimulus from his friendship with Bates. This association 

 largely led to the first expedition to South America, and, gradu- 

 ally, the collector became the master mind, using his collections 

 in the way they should be used as materials for study. 



To take another instance, his views on the State ownership 

 of land may be traced to his association with his elder brother, 

 a surveyor, and to the experience this gave him. 



Patient, industrious, broad-minded, with wonderful powers 

 of concentration, the world has lost a great naturalist and 

 philosopher. 



